Aye that is true, and highly annoying. But this method has been used many times before. I use it myself. Though they do sort of differ between painter its all the same principle.
Its a plain Black Primer is sprayed on first all over the model.
Then secondly from the direction of the light you spray a Grey Primer on, not as heavily this time as you still need the Black in some areas, it shoudl be short sprays that covers most of the areas facing the direction of light. Also when i do this I move the can around ina circular movement to lightly hit other areas not necesarily right in the light. So realy anything pointing downwards or directly to the opposite of the light should be black. Then the bits that shoudl be msotly grey are uward facing and facing directly towards the light.
Lastly get a White primer and spray lighter than the grey primer on the miniature mainly facing towards the light, and ofc other areas the same as the Grey primer. You want this coat to be quite light so it only realy hits onto the top parts/extremities of the model, so it doesn’t go too deep into the recesses.

Hope it helps 🙂
but as I said this is just my way, different painters ahve different methods.
The main reason for doing it this way as well is because it shows you which parts of the mini are hit by light more, and which have shadows. And the white gives a natural highlight, and the black gives a natural shadow. The grey is just to make more of a blend and transition into the shadwos and highlights, plus is a midtone to show where natural colour should be layed, as the light is not totaly getting there yet it is not a shadow because some light is getting there.

For the Ironclad and from watching the yellow/golden Dreadnaught before, excellent tutorials, but I must ask, how do you decide on which bits are painted in metallic and which are painted with regular paints.
When attempting metal clad beastie like this, I usually have a hard time planning what should be in metals, if all should be metal and that sort of thing. Any advise would be quite helpful. With my many thanks, Romain!

Thank you so much !
I’m afraid I cannot help you on this one, however… It is a matter of taste and balance between the colours you want on your mini… usually, machinery and pistons are unpainted, unlike some platings, but that’s it.
I will do a video on colour harmony that might help, albeit indirectly.

so, as im a noob about this matter, whats the point in priming a mini black, white, or black and then white or the oposite? and also, consider doing some verdegris, that would surelly look great.(just my personal point of view)

Priming white lets all the colours pop through much brighter, priming black accentuates the shadows, priming black+grey+white as I did makes all the details stand out and pre-shades the miniature, so your work is immensely facilitated…
I explain it all in a future video.
As for the verdigris, this necessarily comes in at a later time during the painting process, as this is just a basecoat with no shading… This tutorial has been filmed in its entirety, even though it is cut up in several parts for the purpose of web-publication, as with most of my tutorials, so I can no longer alter what I have done on the mini… But there is, if I am not mistaken, some verdigris to come !
Stay tuned…

oh ok. but if you paint several layers of paint, even differrent paint, whether you dont like the look, the primer ”abilities” still aplly? if so, i should get on buying me a grey and a white primerat once!

Unless you need heavy basecoating or change your mind more than once or twice about color, this probably won’t be an issue… You can always use the priming as a general guide. However, I would suggest you use thin, transparent layers of paint…

If you haven’t determined the majority of your colour scheme before painting, I also suggest you think about it a little more ! These things are planned, somewhat.

If you are displeased with your colour scheme and you’re well away in the painting process, you will want to strip the figure and start again from scratch instead of painting over it and drowning the details in too many coats.

Deciding on colours can be hard, but it gets easier with experience. You’ll get there !